City Council - Regular Meeting

Our dear Father in heaven, we are grateful to be gathered together this day as a council and mayor and staff to discuss the items to better serve our community and our city. We are grateful for all of those staff members, our public safety officers, and all that they do for our city in keeping us safe and happy and all the service they provide. We ask that thy spirit may be with us, that we may be guided and directed in making the best decisions for the residents. We say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

May I? So is this an opt-in, resident by resident, or is everyone automatically opted in?

I guess just from a business perspective, why did they pick us? Is it geography?

So can you tell me, for $1 a household per month, how much is that per year we're talking about?

But what I understand from looking at the slideshow is they're paying this, but then to utilize it, they have to basically reach out to waste management for them to come pick it up. It's not like a given every week sort of thing. It's like, as needed, you have this waste, let us know, and we'll make arrangements with you to come get it.

There might be some that don't use it at all, and then there's people who.

And I think even if you go to the landfill, you're still paying – I can't remember what the fee is, $10, $20. I can't really remember. So that itself, if you go once a year, it already pays itself off, it sounds like. Does this apply to businesses in the city as well, where only –

So do you guys have a list of what they accept and what they don't? I mean, you talked about appliances, right? Which I do know that there are people that will pick it up for free. Right. And again, there's opportunities like just running errands. You could take your glass to places or your electronics to places. So I do have a kind of an issue of requiring this of everybody, whether they utilize it or not. I've never had a problem disposing, finding a place to dispose, you know. But do you have a list of what they accept and what they don't?

And this would have to come to a regular session to be voted on. Will you please let them know that if they're not present at that to answer our questions? I would be voting no just by the fact that they're not here.

Yeah, maybe they should come back another time. Maybe we can try for another. I don't know what happened.

And do we, you said residents want this. Do we have hard data that shows that, that there's a demand for this? Or, like, I would be interested to know how many actually want this versus how many would rather not just take care of it on their own.

I mean, I think it's going to be a bigger discussion. Or we can just wait.

I think just one point to that. I think what happens to the money, because right now, and Dean I think just stepped out, if the general number is 30% for the grants, if we don't use all of that money, it has kind of just sat in a reserve fund for future years, right? I think it would, I mean, I'd love to see the 70% go up to 80, but another possible option is to articulate that it's up to 30% for grants, right? So some years maybe we use all 30%, and that will continue to grow over time with sales tax. But there may be a park capital project or something that we really want to focus on. And ma

Yeah, and I would just add, I mean, I do want to protect the 70%, at least, because I think every dollar that we don't put toward that 70% is a dollar coming out of our general fund, right? And so, but for the 30%, we wouldn't, you know, we're not using that general fund money to...

If it's up to 30%, then it does give us some flexibility in the leftover we could work with.

My perspective is that there is a big appetite for parks and rec in Lehigh I mean we have this whole parks master plan that we just that just happened and and they they asked a lot of residents what they wanted what they needed and there's challenges with with maintaining with operating costs versus having new facilities and so I I love the arts and the cultural things as well, but I see right now what we have is we do have a big appetite for the Parks and Rec. We do have some wonderful cultural facilities and things here, but I would also kind of support the up to 30% just because the demands

So I would be remiss if I did not mention that I Kind of want to pivot a little bit on a different topic. So if there's more to talk about I

Okay. The soul, the use of the word soul on when we're talking about the primary funding source of organizations and how they're using the park tax, I don't like the word soul because it implies one, I would rather use primary, meaning that we would look at entities who are using the park tax as a primary source of funding and be a little bit more cautious there. Because I think every nonprofit can find a way to not have this be their sole source of funding. But I think there needs to be maybe a little bit more scrutiny than just one

You don't want... Yeah, like I think that the park tax is like a supplementary form of funding for these organizations, but it should not be the primary source of funding for any of them.

Oh, sorry. I'm going to disagree with that. Again, referring to state law where it says the intent is to provide, I can't remember the words, but predictable and substantial funding for these organizations. So I don't support that change. But I did have a question. When you talk about the volunteer hours and the operating expenses, are you adding that the volunteer hours amount to their operating expense, so it increases? Correct. And that 50%? So is it, okay, I think I get it.

And are you saying that that's just a policy guideline? It's not?

OK. One concern I have with that is that there are some nonprofit organizations that are better Structured so they can have a lot of volunteer hours. I'm thinking the Arts Council with their their plays You know, they have the actors and actresses that you know, they're volunteers So they put in a lot of hours so that adds to it or things like the Hutchings Museum They for insurance purposes. They have to have paid staff on hand and you know to oversee the artifacts and that kind of thing so they They're less able to utilize volunteers not that they couldn't and I To me, it's ultimately I thin

Clarified so that maybe future councils can understand that.

I think it says in the background, it does say enhance funding for recreational amenities.

There's some places where you talk about what, and I think it's in the background that it wasn't included. There's cultural facilities performing arts facilities But yeah, so this we could use the park grant or sorry the park tax Maybe that's to do the thing is that the tax portion could go towards Yeah, so I pulled a couple things from the code itself that

It wasn't in other places, and I just kind of wanted to drive the point home. No, I can make sure it's clear in the policy, but yeah. You know, if we... Don't want to use general fund money or bond as much. Maybe we can use the park tax money towards the Legacy Center.

And then the other thing that I personally would prefer is not having a park grant committee. I think sometimes there's Well, there's a couple of reasons for that. And the first one and foremost, I guess, is because this is tax dollars that we're talking about. Even though it's set aside for specific purposes, it's taxpayer money. And as elected officials, That's kind of our purview and our responsibility to safeguard that money. So when we come up with budget discussions in a work session, we have the department heads presenting to the council. And we have the opportunity to ask questions and

That's interesting that you bring that up, because I was kind of thinking about this. This is my first go around as a council member, how we had the CBDG applicants come before the council. And then eventually we had the park applicants come, right? But it was a little different process this year with having the PARCC committee come and present their ideas. And then we asked the PARCC grant applicants to also come. So it was a little bit redundant versus what the CBDG applicants did. I can see the benefit of just streamlining it and just having it in a work session with the PERC grant applican

Yeah, I will just chime in my perspective. This is an opt-in tax. that the residents vote on to opt into, I think it's really, really important to have a committee of residents who give input on how it's spent. And so if we can maybe redesign the process without eliminating the resident input, I'd be open to that and maybe finding some middle ground. But this is something that if we want it to continue, we need to make sure that there's resident engagement throughout the whole process, in my opinion.

For me, I would defer mostly to you, Matt, because you're the staff member that kind of quarterbacks all of this. And you don't have to share it in this meeting if you don't want to, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how necessary it is because what I don't want to do is add more to your workload and maybe a committee could relieve that workload and sometimes it would actually add to your workload because you have to see everything that comes through anyway. For me, I think the biggest thing is filtering out non-qualified organizations. Once I have that information and I can see t

Okay. That's helpful. And just one more separate issue I want to bring up. For the way I see the grants is that there are organizations that are operating within Lehigh, like Hutchings Arts Council. I think for them to be physically located and operating in Lehigh is important if the funding is going toward ongoing operating expenses. The outliers are sometimes there's events that are put on by external organizations to Lehigh. But the event itself, so all the expenses, the operations, manpower, equipment, everything is within Lehigh. I kind of like to separate that out a little bit. So if we'

Yeah, and I definitely want to give preference for Lehigh organizations. But I just want to clarify, is that a change in this new draft?

So my understanding is that, and I could try to pull it up really quick, try to find it, but state code from my understanding, specifies that it needs to be within the city.

But I think it says operating. I think that's the vague aspect of operating within Lehigh. So if the event, because we've had applications come through generally for Lehigh Arts Council or for the Hutchings Museum, right? It's pretty obvious. But if it's like... chalk it up, for example. If the event that we're funding is fully operational within Lehigh, that's where I think the term is vague in state code. And ultimately, the spirit of it is, is it benefiting Lehigh residents? Is it Is it happening in Lehigh? And then the difference is a physical location like a museum or an event put on with

So I did pull it up, and it's State Code 59-12-12. 1402, sorry, I'm going to find it again, that the money, the revenue collected from a tax imposed, this tax, shall be expended to finance ongoing operating expenses of recreational fields. Number two, sorry. organizations cultural organizations within the city so the organization as I'm reading it has to be within the city not just the event has to be within the city and so a lot of this is just policy that we're deciding on but we do have to follow what state code specifies so it to me it's we need to fund only those organizations within the

Yeah, I guess the ongoing operating expenses is where I'm held up. Because I think for a brick-and-mortar museum or something, we're funding the ongoing expenses. But for something like Chalk It Up, that's definitely not an ongoing. It's a one-time expense. So I think that's the difference.

Feel free to look at the code and see where it says. I mean, this is what we can spend the money on. It allows us to spend that money on organizations within the city. It doesn't say anything that we are allowed to spend money on one-time events within the city. Does that make sense? So to me, maybe Craig is the expert here, but we can only spend the money as stipulated in the state code.

Yeah, I'd love to hear Craig's thoughts on that, just because we have been doing it very differently the last five years.

Run a bill file. Add some clarity up there. Get our legislators to just add in events or something. Because I think this was written for the zoo and the aquarium and those big things that depend on a lot of this. I don't think when the legislators wrote this that they were thinking about Chalk It Up. But I think there is value in a Chalk It Up event. So we have time over the next session to work with our reps to get an amendment passed. And then we could be able to put it into play next year, too.

So Craig, this ballot measure was passed under law at a certain, whenever, 2021? 2021, yeah. Okay, so does it operate under code in place at that time, or if code changes, then it changes?

CHRISTIE WOODARD- OK. Well, again, I want to honor the intent of state law To me, it's pretty clear I'm not seeing the word doing business in or operating within. I see organizations within the city. I think that is what was in place when the residents voted on it. So my position is to honor that. It would save us a lot of time. I mean, I think we have too many organizations just looking at the list of the the last list of applicants, there's some that are really pushing that envelope on what a cultural organization is, whether if they're doing something substantial in Lehigh, have a substanti

Please do. So yeah, I looked up city law, too, just because Michelle was talking about it. It looks here, 59-12-1402. And we go to three, and then to A and B. And it talks about cultural facilities, recreational facilities, and zoological facilities within the city or town or within the geographic area of entities. that are parties to an interlocal agreement. And then it talks about this more, and it keeps talking about the geographic area. So to me, I do think that we're kind of talking about the organization is located within Lehigh. I personally love Chalk It Up. But when I voted for this a

I think just kind of tying that back to my original comment, let's say we go down that route and it's only organizations that are physically located here putting on events here. There may be years where we don't use the full 30%. And Dean, I think you stepped out when we talked about this at the beginning of the discussion. But if we were to phrase it as up to 30% for cultural grants, the remaining we can use for capital projects. Is that correct? Because as of, at least in the last few years, it's just kind of been put in reserve. But if we don't want to do that, can we put it toward capital

Okay, because I would kind of support like no less than 70% in policy with the remaining going toward cultural grants or other capital projects as needed. Just because I think it gives the council that are in the seats that year more flexibility on Within the policy to to say hey this year the the cultural grants We're gonna have to use the full 30 for whatever reason and then other years. Maybe we only use You know 20% and we have other capital projects that we need to focus on. So I think that would be my My preference unless we wanted to give it a hard number of like, you know, 80 20 or wha

What if we eliminated the split? Just imagine, just pretend. Do cities have that, just an open fund, and they kind of allocate the funds where they need? Or do most cities have this kind of split?

Well, and I was looking this up, preparing for this meeting, and I saw that a lot of smaller cities, they don't have committees. And maybe it's for simplicity's sake, but it's one less step, I guess, in bureaucracy is how they worded it. That's their words, not mine. But yeah, it looks like Pleasant Grove uses staff review and council approval. And then there's other ones that are not necessarily in Utah Valley that do a similar thing as well, or council-only review. And I think that just statewide, when you've taken the small cities into account, that's kind of the most common statewide, actu

What I'm saying is even a step further that all of these organizations should be working to survive with or without the tax so that if the tax were to ever go away, we don't lose these vital organizations in our community. And so if we create something that we're the sole source of funding for them and it's not renewed, that's going to be a difficult budget cycle for that next council. So I just want to incentivize them to diversify as much as possible.

Can you answer me how you would tell that they are the primary source?

You'd look at their revenues and look at the percent of total to determine who's the primary funder.

They provide that information already in the applications?

It's really for them, right? Because it's an opt-in tax that our residents vote on. and if they decide to opt out those organizations are at risk and i worry about that for them so the major minor or both all all of those organizations i'm worried so you just don't know right so if we change it to primary at this point i think it would

kill these programs. I think the message has been sent loud and clear that they can't depend on funding from the city or even the grants. And the ones that I'm working with are working hard towards becoming self-sustaining. But if you make that change now, that undercuts them at this point without giving them time to adapt. So I'm absolutely fine keeping it so that it's not their sole source of revenue, but to change it so it can't be their primary source of revenue at this point, I think is very premature.

I think there's a compromise there in that if we're making the policy that 50% of operating expenses It can't be more than 50%, right? So it can't be 51%. That's to me, I think we can find middle ground in that's not the sole source, but it's also not going to be the majority of their operating expenses. And that kind of helps to combat the dependency on this as a primary source, not necessarily We're going to cut them off if they're at, you know, whatever, 52%. But if this is encouraging them, if we're encouraging the 50%, up to 50%, to me that's a good message there to send that up to 50% bu

We just didn't follow it. We were new. It is policy. I know. And so maybe we're just hashing out. Like at the end of the day, are we creating something that doesn't matter because the council can do whatever they want anyway, right? What is a guideline if we don't believe in it? Why would we pass it? Why would we have it? If we're going to have a guideline, we should follow something.

I would be OK if we did not keep it as long as I think throughout the process, I don't know, maybe it's in a public meeting where we have almost like a public hearing on so that the public can provide input. I don't know for sure. Because I agree with Heather in the sense that it's great for residents to feel involved and have a voice in at least recommending

So I would like I said, prefer it just come to the city council. But I'd love to have public comment on it, public input, and open that public input to all the residents, just not a few appointed people. So yeah, I definitely want to have the public weigh in on this, like we do with budgets and everything else. But I do see a problem. I mean, it was said that committees aren't political. I probably would disagree with that, because they have opinions and they have preferences of their own. And I would rather just open it up to all the public to be able to weigh in to the council, because this

I would like to know, maybe not here, is how the committee felt about what happened this year.

We can privately chat about that. Because I know there was frustration, it seemed like to me at least, that there was frustration on the part of the Park Grant Committee that from body language and from the words that were used, that it wasn't decided how they recommended. Even though the guidelines they were given by the council last year was why they ended up with the applicants they ended up like do you know what i mean so we were just trying to fulfill the like i was trying to fulfill the previous council's um direction um so i'm not sure how that ended up and i would like to know and and

Can you work on maybe developing a different process? Like if we kept the committee, but the way in which the process happened changed, is that an option? Yeah, but the way in which the process of, like, because I still think we could have applicants come to both, right? And that would meet that need.

Okay. I would just, while we're talking about the process, it would be good, especially, you know, the 70-30 thing, it's very fluid. At the end of the day, we can choose not. We can choose whatever number we want. That's my understanding. So the one missing piece for that would be, I would love to hear from Steve Marchbanks at the beginning of the park grant season, just to show here are his top priorities. If he did have extra funding, Here's his number one priority, number two, number three, right? That would be helpful. And I know he does that in the budget season, but it would be good for

Or maybe not just Steve, but also Dan at the Legacy Center, if that's on the table. Like, whoever would benefit from a city department. I'd probably defer to Jason on that, though.

Can you give me an example of a data breach? for in this context with the city? Would this be utility data that we host, or would this be employee data that we have?

One thing that I would maybe suggest adding is a section when it comes to vendor due diligence. So for any vendor that the city contracts with, that they're of good repute and data protection and have no ties to foreign governments. And I know that sounds weird, but there are I mean, I lived in China. I worked in the federal government. And just one example, there's a camera company called Hikvision, and they sell cameras in the U.S. They have extremely good technology, and it's typically cheaper than U.S. products. However, that specific company also assists the Chinese government in monitori

I don't know as much about companies based in foreign countries, so I do not have an opinion on that. But I do think that it's important that our vendors are also respecting and secure with the data that we have. So that's important to me. Privacy is important.

And maybe I'll just clarify. There's going to be companies that are like British-based or whatever, right? Maybe we could make it... be a little more nuanced on foreign technology, right? Like hostile or... Maybe you can help me craft the exact language since I know you're more of an expert with that. Yeah, I can help you figure out the language, but you get the gist, right? I'm not too worried about the UK, a little more worried about China or Russia.

Does the federal government have requirements like that? Okay. Well, there you go. There's a good basis example.